^"■^t. .■ 






■-^-^ /.^-^'A .."^^\c:^/V /..^%>o /\s-' 



% '^^ ^^ ' /^V/K^ '"^^^ ^c,^"^' **f!!l^^ 'e^ ^^ ' »:r 










" ^oV^ 




•- -^^0^ » 



.*-^ V^*/.. \"^->' ./V^>- V-..-. 





















v-;^ 









0' %l:l% V 



V* •'•. 









.M-^ /j 



V-0^ 












*" .. 






,^^ 



.0^ c 







.^•^ °- -: 












''^^ ' 
















ce 



ON 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN 




BEFORE 



BnCKIjXgp^M PBgT, 6. ft. ^. 



BY W. W. CLARK, D. D. 



JMerrtoiiial Sermoiz 



ON 



BRAHAM Lincoln, 



DELIVERED BEFORE 



BUCKI^I6p;qM p0?t, 6. ^. % 



(DEPARTMENT OF CONNECTICUT.) 



IN THE 



iRWALK Methodist Episcopal Church, 



Merr.orial Sunday, J/T^V 29 fh, 1887. 

By W. \A^. CLARK, D. D. 

William vTarner Clark, D.D, 



I^TJBXilSHEID :B"Z" I^EdTJIEST 03F THE Gi-Ii-£i.3SriD .A-EIvdl-Z-. 






NOTE A. 

The service began by singing the Doxology, and reading respongively the 
46th Psahn. The Hymn 563, beginning 



• Onward Christian soldiers ! 
Marching as to war," 



was sung, and prayer was offered by Rev. Edward Anderson, Grand Army Chap- 
lain for the State of Connecticut. After the Anthem and tlie Collection Hymn 

567, beginning 

" Stand up, stand up for Jesus," 

was read by Rev. Charles E. Torrey, of the Baptist Cliurch. After the sermon 
the service closed with the National Anthem. 

NOTE B. 

To rightly understand and appreciate some passages in the following sermon 
the reader must bear in mind that the preacher is a native of Canada, and was 
there during the Civil War and at the time of Mr. Lincoln's death. His view of 
the Great Rebellion was taken from a " Canadian Observatory." 






RnmiET McllKioii, Primer, 
5<1 A V8 Ve.i'vSl., \. Y. 



SERMON. 



" All Jicdah and Jerusalem mourned for JosiahP 

II Chron. 35: 24. 



Events which touch us as individuals, and make/us weep alone, 
are common ; but events whicli touch us as a nation, and wed mil- 
lions of hearts in the unity of tears, are of rare occurrence. Such an 
event happened to Judali when Josiah the King, smitten by an 
archer's arrow, was borne home to his palace to die in the prime of 
his manhood, the zenith of his hopes. The nation felt the blow 
from centre to circumference; ''and all Judah and Jerusalem 
mourned for Josiah; and all the singing men, and all the singing 
women spake of him in their lamentations:' 

A similar event occurred in this nation, when on the fifteenth, 
day of Aprd, 1865, Abkaham Lincoln, its Chief Executive, pierced 
through the brain by the bullet of an assassin, lingered through the 
night in unconsciousness and died at the coming of the mo"ning. 
The nation felt the blow from tlie Atlantic to the Pacific. Sorrow 
reigned in every temple ; there was a pensive sadness in the tone of 
the pulpit, a wail in the melody of the choir. Millions of loyal 
hearts mourned as if the first-born in every home had died. From 
city to city, in one vast funeral procession, the stricken nation fol- 



lowed the bier of its " Mighty Dead " to his last resting place in 
Springfield. 

The icorld was shocked ! It was the greatest tragedy of modern 
times. It awoke in your behalf the sympathies of Christen- 
dom, Kingdoms, empires and colonies joined their lamentations 
with yours. Never before was England, never before was Canada, 
brought so near to this country. They wept with you at the grave 
of your fallen Chieftain. Their hearts tided toward yours. They 
could not help feeling that in the death of Abraham Lincoln they, 
too, had lost a brother and a friend. Canada never saw a darker 
day. Her churches were thronged with mourners; her stores were 
closed, her streets deserted. The brave Union Jack, that never 
quailed before a cannon, bowed his head and came down to half- 
mast. Strong men wept like children, and the hearts of the Cana- 
dian people, far and near, yearned over you in your unutterable 
grief. All the recriminations and misunderstandings of years were 
buried in a day; and I trust no combination of men or devils will 
ever be able to give them a resurrection, 

A legend of Ancient Rome tells how Marcus Curtius sacrificed 
himself for the good of his country. An earthquake had rent the 
city and left an immense chasm across the centre of the Forum, 
Every effort to fill the mighty breach was unavailing, and the city 
was smitten with consternation. The soothsayers declared that the 
horrid ga]) would remain ()]»en until Rome should throw into it that 
on which her greatness depended. While the people were wonder- 
ing what this augury meant, Marcus Curtius, mounted on a war- 
horse, caparisoned for l)attle. appeared in the Forum, and declaring 
that Rome had nothing more indispensable to her greatness than a 
brave citizen fully accoutred for war, he boldly galloped into the 
yawning abyss. Then the earth closed, the chasm vanished, and 
Rome walked over the place in safety ! Such is the mythical halo 
which legendary history has thrown around the name of Marcus 
Curtius, 

But viodci'H history has a real Marcus Curtius in the person of 



Abraham Lincoln. When the earthquake of Civil War had con- 
vulsed this nation and severed the Old World from the New, he fell 
in the breach, and by his fall cemented the rent in a continent and 
closed up the chasm between two hemispheres! 

"» We live in deeds, not years ; in thoughts, not breaths ; 
In feelings, not in figures on a dial. 
He lives most who thinks most, feels the noblest, 
Acts the best." 

Now 1 want to ask this double question : Why did the Jewish 
nation lament at the death of Josiah, and why did this nation 
weep at the fall of Lincoln ? I answer, because of the incalculable 
loss which the nations sustained in the removal of their illustrious 
leaders. 

To appreciate the greatness of the loss you must understand the 
greatness of their characters. 

1. Josiah was a man of a cultured mind. He had an intellect, 
and he used it. He did not proudly imagine that his exalted posi- 
tion relieved him from the obligation or the necessity of mental toil. 
His mind was pushed forward in quest of the highest truth, and his 
brain was well stored with living thoughts. 

In this respect our lamented Lincoln resembled the illustrious 
King of Jndah. Nature had riclilj endowed him with a sturdy in- 
tellect, and this he educated with singular assiduity. I do not mean 
that he became versed in the musty relics of antiquity, or the learn- 
ing of the schools, for this was not possible to a man in his circum- 
stances. When I speak of his education, the word must define my 
meaning. It signifies a leading forth — a drawing out — a develop- 
ment, — not a mind infused with erudition, but a mind led forth to 
think — educed into practical and profitable activity. In this sense 
Mr. Lincoln was an educated man. And he acquired his education 
under most signal disadvantages. He was born in poverty, cradled 
in squalor, and grew up in privation. When he was seven years 
old the family removed to Indiana, and here he began his school 



days. His Iloosier school-master describes his " coming to the old 
log school-house, attired in buckskin clothes, a raccoon-skin cap, 
and with an old aritlimetic wliich had somewhere been found for 
him to begin his investio-ations into the higher branches." 

But the pressure for help on the frontier farm was very great, 
and his father not perceiving the unpolished diamond hidden under 
the U!jgainl_y exterior of his son, soon took himfiom school and put 
him at steady work. His school days were over; all told they did 
not amount to more tiian a year. But his acquisition of knowledge 
did not end with his school days. In the intervals of his work on 
the farm, " he read, wrote and ciphered incessantly." His com])an- 
ion, John Hanks, says, " When Abe and I returned to the house 
from work, he would go to the cupboard, snatch a piece of corn- 
bread, take down a book, sit down, cock his legs up as high as his 
head, aiid read." 

His I'eading was necessarily limited, for l)Ooks at that time and 
, 'place were among the rarest luxuries. The family library contained 
. only five volumes, — the Bible, the Pilgrim's Progress, vEsop's 
Fables, Robinson Crusoe, and a History of the United States. 
These five books, — among tiie best that could fall into the hands of 
. a young man — he devoured with an insatiable voracity. He bor- 
, rowed Ramsay's Life of Washington, and unguardedly left it in an 
-open window where a shower of rain greatly damaged it. He car. 
ried the book to its owner in great grief, and offered to work three 
days to pay for it. His offer was accepted, and tiius the volume be- 
came one of his own literary treasures. 

After tlie family removed to Illinois and he began his elerksliii) 
in the little New Salem store, his mind was turneil in the direction 
of English grammar, and learning the whereabouts of a stray 
''Kirkham," he set off to borrow it, and soon returned trom a walk 
of twelve miles with the coveted volume. Subsequently he walked 
to Springfield to bornnva copy of " Blackstone," and on tlie return 
journey he committed over forty of its ])onderous pages to memory. 
Such was the mettle of the young man who afterwards rose to 



7 

eminence at the bar and in the political world. It was not the facili- 
ties of his school days, or the advantages of his student life that 
made him a success, but the pluck and push of his royal brain. 
Instead of succumbing to difficulties he conquered them, and over- 
came by a noble passion'. He was one among a million. He was 
grandly unique. He stood amid his fellows like a mighty Himal- 
ayan mountain whose summit pierces the clouds. 

" Clear mind, kind mind, walled about with greatness. 
Conqueror, unconquerable over human ill ; 
Theban, Collosus, sitting in sedateness, 

How art thou in majesty a mighty spirit still." 

2. Again, Josiah was a man of a tender heart. We have the 
express declaration of Scripture that his " heart was tender." Sen- 
sibility of heart give life and power to intellect. Where sensibility 
and intellect are not in their due proportion the character is defec- 
tive. Where the sensibility is stronger than the intellect, the man 
is likely to become a morbid ascetic, or a reckless fanatic. Where 
the intellect is stronger than the sensibility the man is likely to be- 
come a cold theorist, living in the frigid abstractions of his own 
brain. But where both are harmoniously com'bined, you have a man 
fit lor great things; — a man whose counsels will tell alike on your 
understanding and your heart. 

In our lamented Lincoln this requisite of sensibility seems to 
have been possessed in a proportionate degree, tempering all the 
powers of his manly intellect, and giving pathos to his vigorous 
thought. His massive countenance, beaming with benignity, told 
every observer that his nature was swayed by " the royal law of 
love." 

One or two incidents during his presidency will illustrate this 
point. A personal friend of Mr. Lincoln, says, " 1 called on him one 
day in the early part of the war. He had just written a pardon for 
a young man who had been sentenced to be shot, for sleeping at his 
post, as a sentinel." Mr. Lincoln remarked as he read the pardon 



8 

to this friend ; "I conld not think of going into eternity with tiie 
blood of that young man on my skirts." Then lie added, " It is not 
to be wondered at that a boy, raised on a farm, probably in the 
habit of going to bed at dark, should, when required to watch, fall 
asleep ; and I cannot consent to shoot him for such an act " The 
dead body of that young man was afterwards found among the slain 
on the field of Fi'edericksburg, wearing next his heart a photograph 
of his merciful judge, under whicii the grateful fellow had written, 
" God Mess President Lincoln ! " 

An officer of the army relates another incident in the following 
words : — " During: the first week of my command there were twenty- 
four deserters sentenced by court-martial to be shot, and the war- 
rants for their execution were sent to the President to be signed. 
He refused. I went to Washington and had an interview. I said, 
' Mr. President, unless these men are made an example of, the army 
itself is in danger. Mercy to the few is cruelty to the many,' He 
replied, *Mr. General, there are already too many weeping widows 
in the United States. For God's sake don't ask me to add to the 
number, for 1 won't do it ! ' " 

A whole evening might be spent in relating such incidents. The 
woes which the war brougiit upon the people kept his sympathetic 
heart always bleeding. He was simple as a child, affectionate as a 
woman, and yet a man of stern principles and unswerving integrity 
in the discharge of his duty. If occasion required he could stand 
erect and shake his mane like an angry lion. 

Josiah's tender heart, also, humbled him before the Lord in the 
day of his calamity ; and Lincoln's tender heart did the same for 
him. When death entered the White House in 1S62, and carried 
away liis beautiful boy, Willie, he was overwhelmed with grief. But 
he sought the Lord in his sorrow and found comfort. A Christian 
lady, who was called in to nurse the sick one, says that Mr. Lincoln 
w'atched with her by the bedside, and would often walk the room, 
saying sadly, " This is the greatest trial of my life ; why is it % Why 
is it?" In the course of conversation she told him that she was a 



widow, that lier husband and two children were in heaven ; and 
added that she saw the hand of God in it all, and that she had never 
loved him so much as she had since her affliction. " How is that 
brought about ? " inquired Mr. Lincoln. "Simply by trusting in 
God, and feeling that he doeth all things well," was the reply. 

On the morning of the funeral, when she expressed her sympathy 
with him, he thanked her, and said, "I will try to go to God with 
my sorrows." A few days after she asked him if he could trust 
God. He replied, " I think I can, and I will try. I wish I had 
that childlike faith you speak of, and I trust he will give it to me.'^ 
Then he spoke of his mother, whom so many years before he had 
laid to rest in the wilds of Indiana. " I remember her prayers," said 
he, " and they have always followed me. They have clung to me 
all my life." 

On a subsequent occasion he asked this lady what constituted a 
true Christian experience. She replied, that, in her judgment, it 
consisted of a conviction of one's own sinfulness and weakness, and 
personal need of a Saviour for strength and support ; that views of 
mere doctrine might and would differ, but when one was really 
brought to feel his need of divine help, and t(j seek the aid of the 
Holy Spirit for strength and guidance, it was satisfactory evidence 
of his having been born again. 

After a short pause Mr. Lincoln said, " if what you have told me 
is really a correct view of this great subject, I think I can say with 
sincerity, that I hope I am a Christian. I had lived until my boy, 
Willie, died without realizing fullythese great things. That blow 
overwhelmed me. It showed me my weakness as I had never felt 
it before, and if I can take what you have stated as a test, I think I 
can safely say that I know something of that great change of which 
you speak." This lady adds, as her judgment, " I do believe he 
was a true Christian, though he had very little confidence in him- 
self." 

In all the great emergencies of Mr. Lincoln's after years, his re- 
liance on Divine guidance and assistance was extremely touching. 



10 

"I liav^e ])een driven," lie once said, "many times to my knees by 
the overwhelming conviction that I had nowhere else to go. My 
own wisdom and that of all about me seemed insufficient for that 
day.'" 

On another occasion he said, '"I should be the most presumptuous 
blockhead uj)on this footstool, if I for one day thoucjht that I could 
discharge the duties which have come upon me since I came into 
this phice, without the aid and enlightenment of One who is wiser 
and stronger than all others." 

Dr. Holland, one of his biographers, says that he " was in the 
habit of spending an eai-l_y hour each day in prayer." What a sight ! 
The Chief Magistrate of a great nation taking his ])eople every 
morning, as Moses took the Israelites, in the arms of faith and 
prayer, and carrying them to God ! 

" And lliis was lie who ruled a world of men 
As might some prophel of the elder day, — 
Brooding above the tempest and the fray 
With deep-e3'ed thought and more than mortal ken. 
A power was his beyond the touch of art 
Or armed strength : It was his mighty heart." 

3. Again, Josiah was a man of a corrictive spirit. He sought to 
correct the evils of his day. He set himself to work with all his 
might to destroy idolatry, tiie consuming evil of his times. He 
threw his whole being into the task of ])ulling up and banishing this 
deadly upas from the land. It had well-tiigh destroyed the -glory, 
and was rH))i(lly consuming the very vitals of the nation. 

In like manner Abraham I.inct)ln set himself to work to check 
the e.iienslon^ and afterwards to destroy the existence of American 
Slavery, the reigning evil of iiis day. Fur more than two hundred 
years slavery had staimsd the glory of this continent, and the slavc- 
ocracy of the South liad dictated the hiws of the nation until heaven 
could endure it no longer. Then the thunder-tread of the mightiest 
armies that ever slu^ok the world reverberated across this continent 



11 

for four dreadful years, uutil the Star Spangled Banner emerged 
from its bloody baptism with the dark dishonor and villianous stain 
of slavery washed out forever ! 

But terrible v/as the price which this nation paid to break down 
and sweep away that gigantic system of wrong, and great was the 
red sea of tears and blood through which your families passed. 
Scarcely was there a home in which there was not one dead. Your 
noble Ship of State, witli Lincoln at the helm, trembled and shook 
in the strong grasp of the angry billows. But her cargo of future 
citizens was precious in the sio-ht of heaven ; and when her noble 
pilot was stretched on her deck by tlie hand of a cowardly assassin, 
and her first-mate lay weltering in his berth, Providence seized the 
helm and Irought her safe to land! Then the world-renowned 
Proclamation of the " Mighty DSad " was caught up and echoed 
over mountain and valley by a liberty-loving people, until irom the 
tall pine-tops of Maine to the gates of 'the Golden West, the univer- 
sal song of freedom was heard and the olive branch of peace was 
waved. Would God that " Father Abraham" had lived to enjoy 
the fruit of this grand consummation ! But he rests from his labors 
and his works follow him. 

" He had been born a destined work to do, 

And lived to do it ; four long suffering years— 
Ill-fate, ill-feeling, ill report lived through — 

And then he heard the hisses change to cheers, 
The taunts to tribute, the abuse to praise. 

And took them both with his unwavering mood ; 
But as he came on light from darkest days, 

And seemed to touch the goal from where he stood, 
A felon hand, between that goal and him, 

Reached from behind his head, a trigger prest. 
And those perplexed and patient eyes were dim. 

Those gaunt, long-laboring limbs were laid to rest! " 

Now the departure from the world of such cultured minds, 
tender hearts, and corrective spirits, as Josiah and Lincoln is an un- 



12 

calculable loss to the nations on which they shed the genial and 
hallowing rays of their exalted natures ; and no wonder that Jew 
and Gentile mourned as they followed Prince and President to their 
last resting place. 

I have thus far endeavored to carry out a comparison between 
Josiah and Lincoln. I wish now to notice one particular in which 
Lincohi differed from Josiah. He was not a king, but one of the 
people exalted by their franchise to the rnlership of a sovereign na- 
tion. He did not come to his position by birth or inheritance with- 
out regard to his qualification, but was selected because of his well- 
known and tested ability in statecraft. 

What is a King? A friend of mine, an Americanized-English- 
man (Rev. W. B. Attleck), says, a King "is a costly sinecnrist to 
his country, an idol for toadyists; an iconoclast of domestic virtues, 
an incarnation of human frailties, a blot on a page of history, an 
impediment to just legislation, a burden to mankind while alive, 
and an enigma to the Almighty to find him a special place wlieii 
dead. Thank merciful heaven, then for raising u]) fuch meu as 
Washington and his compeers to tell this country it would fare bet- 
ter without them. Have you ever thanked God for your numerous 
national benefactions ? How can you contain the boundless joy 
which should ever overflow your souls that you can read your first 
century of history without your hearts being pained or cheeks being 
crimsoned? I often wonder if we foreigners ever feel sufficiently 
thankful to God and to your good people for mutually permitting 
us to emigrate to, live in, and become citizens of a republic which is 
immutable in duration and perennial in benefits. Ye who were 
born here, where your President can live and maintain his family 
on $50,000 a year, ' rejoice and be exceedingly glad ; ' but while do- 
ing so, do i)lease spare an item of pity for those who were born in a 
small kingdom which unnually appropriates |1, 925,000 to its sov- 
ereign, and tlieii has to pension each prince, princess, their hus- 
bands, tlieir children, grand-children, great-grand-children, and 
their legion of cousins to the thinland fourth generation, while the 



13 

hungry work-people are plaintively wailing forth, ' How long, O 
Lord, how long? ' " 

In this land consecrated to liberty and equality, there are no 
musty feudal institutions, ai-resting the triumphal inarch of enter- 
prise ; no cold shade of an aristocracy, monopolizing the offices of 
government and honor; no man claiming precedence and preference 
because he stands high on a pile of ancestral bones, or because the 
better part of him, like a potato hill, is linder the ground. Every 
young man of brain, and energy, and principle, and pluck, may put 
in his claim to the highest post of honor and distinction in the land. 
Every young man belongs to the blood royal, and is a possible can- 
didate for a mightier sceptre than was ever swayed by an Alex- 
ander or a Csesar. All " are created equal," and all are free ; but 
let us not use our " freedom for an occasion to the flesh." Let every 
patriot see to it that this government of the people, by the people, 
and for the people, does not become a government of the saloon^ hy 
the saloon, and for the saloon. '' Eternal vigilance is the price of 
liberty." 

I wish now to call your attention to three striking features in 
Mr. Lincoln's moral and mental manhood worthy of special note, 
namely, his noble character, his ready wit, and his effective oratory. 
1. ITis nohle character. — Our character is what we are ; our repu- 
tation is what others think of us. Every man is the architect and 
builder of his own character. An eloquent writer says ; " Our 
minds are given us, but our characters we make. Our mental powers 
must be cultivated. The full measure of all the powers necessary 
to make a man, is no more a character than a handfnll of seed is an 
orchard of fruit. Plant the seeds and tend them well, and they will 
make an orchard. Cultivate the powers and harmonize them well, 
and they will make a noble character. The germ is not the tree ; 
the acorn is not the oak ; neither is the mind a character. God 
gives the mind, man makes the character. The mind is the garden, 
the character is the fruit ; the mind is the white page, the character 
is the writing we put upon it ; the mind is the metallic plate, the 



14 

character is our engraving thereon. The mind is the shop, the 
character is our profits on the trade. Large profits are made from 
quick sales and small percentages, — so great characters are made by 
many little acts and efibrts. A good character is more precious 
than rubies, or gold, or crowns, or kingdoms ; and the work of 
making it is the noblest labor on earth." 

Mr. Lincoln planted and reared for himself a noble character. 
Dr. Holland says, " That, living among the roughest of rough men, 
many of whom were addicted to coarse vices, he never acquired a 
vice. There was no taint upon his moral character. No stimulant 
ever entered his lips, no profanity ever came forth from them, which 
defiled the man." His recent biographers in the current numbers 
of The Century Magazine^ say, "His reverence for women was so 
dee]:) and tender that he thought an injury to one of them was a sin 
too heinous to be expiated. No Hamlet, dreaming amid the turrets 
of Elsinore, no Sidney, creating a chivalrous Arcadia, was fuller of 
mystic and shadowy fancies of the worth and dignity of woman 
than this backwoods politician." 

But the rearing of this noble character was not the work of a 
day, or a month, or a year. Noble characters are of slow growtii. 
Mushrooms spring up in a night ; so do " Musk-heads.''' But a noble 
character is the work of a life-time. It is the result of constant cul- 
ture ; it is the meed of patient toil ; it is the reward of fidelity in 
the moral stewardshij). Li the store, at the bar, in tlie legislature, 
in the cabinet of the nation, through the exciting drama of the Civil 
War, and in all the relations of life, our liero carried with him a 
stainless character and an unshaken loyalty to duty. 

After all there is nothing great in this world, but character. It 
is the verdict of the Eternal. The divine estimate of a man is not 
what riches, or honors, or distinctions he has, but what is his char- 
acter ! Character is ?'^a^ «^c>/'i{A/ and 

" Worth makes the man." 

2. His ready wit. — On this point I might talk for an hour, but 
I will onlv cite a few illustrations. 



15 

In one of his early political campaigns, after lie had made his 
speech, a gentleman, who had recent]}^ built a new house and placed a 
lightning rod upon it, mounted the platform and said, '' That young 
man must be taken down a little, and I am sorry the task devolves 
upon me." After he had finished his "taking down," Mr. Lincoln 
retorted : " The gentleman has alluded to my being a young man, 
I am older in years than I am in the tricks and trades of politicians j 
but I would rather die now, than, like that gentleman, live to see 
the day that I would have to erect a lightning rod to pi"otect a guilty 
■conscience from an oifended God."' 

In another campaign he was accused of being an aristocrat; to 
which he replied ; " An aristocrat, indeed ! No, I am not an aris- 
tocrat ; I am a poor boy, hired on a flat-boat at eight dollars a 
month, and have <^nly one pair of breeches to my name, and they 
are buckskin ; and if you know the nature of buckskin, you know 
that when wet and dried by the sun it shrinks ; and my breeches 
kept shrinking until they left several inches of my legs bare between 
the tops of my socks and the lower jiarts of my breeches ; and as I 
am growing taller they are becoming shorter, and so much tighter 
that they leave a blue streak around my legs, which can now be 
seen. If yon call this aristocracy I plead guilty to the charge." 

'•■ Who shall judge a man by manners, 
Who shall know him by his dress ; 
Paupers may be fit for princes — 
Princes fit for something less. 
Crumpled shirt and dirty jacket, 
May beclothe the golden ore 
Of the deepest thoughts and feelings — 
Satin vests can do no more." 

A day or two after the unfortunate battle of Bull's Run, when 
the troops had fallen back on Arlington Heights, Mr. Lincoln drove 
out to the camp. His carriage, stopped in front of a Wisconsin 
regiment. "Well, boys," said Mr. Lincoln, " you think you got 
whipped, but I don't." The captain replied, " Uncle Abe, it you 



16 

will give us bine clothes, and better muskets, we can whip the 
devil." Tlie President, quickly responded : " Well, captain, we 
don't want you to whip the devil, but his rebellions imps." 

One more illustration of his ready wit: During his administra- 
tion, Lord Lyons was British Minister at Washington. He was a 
batchelor. When he appeared before Mr. Lin-oln on one occasion 
to announce the betrothal of the Prince of Wales to the Princess 
Alexandra, he said, " May it please your Excellency, I hold in my 
haTid an autograph letter I'rom my I'oyal mistress. Queen Victoria, 
which I have been commanded to present to your Excellency. In 
it she informs your Excellency that her son, His Koyal Highness, 
the Prince of Wales, is about to contract a matrimonial alliance 
with Her Royal Highness, the Princess Alexandra, of Denmark." 
Lord Lyons then presented the letter and awaited the answer. It 
came immediately, and was brief, scriptural, and exceedingly ap- 
propriate : '' Lord Lyons, ' go thou and do likewise.' " 

I turn now to my last point, namely : 

3. His effective oratory. — At the bar, on the hustings, in the 
legislature, and on the jDlatform, his speech was terse, pithy, some- 
times poetic, but always emphatic, and generally carried conviction 
to the minds of impartial hearers. He could adapt himself to any 
and every occasion. He could be argumentative or rhetorical, 
humorous or pathetic, boisterous or sedate, as circumstances de- 
manded. I might give you many illustrations of his oratory, but 
one must suffice. It shall be his address at the dedication of the 
soldier's cemetery on the field of Gettysburg. It is a gem of purest 
crystal. 

" Fourscore and seven years ago, our fathers brought forth upon 
this continent a new nation, conceived in liberty, and dedicated to 
the proposition that all men are created equal. Now we are en- 
gaged in a great civil Avar, testing whether that nation, or any na- 
tion, so conceived and so dedicated can long endure. We are met 
on a gi'eat battle-field of that war. We are come to dedicate a 
portion of it as the final resting-place of those who here gave their 



17 

lives that that nation might hve. It is altogether fitting and proper 
that we should do this. But in a larger sense we cannot dedicate, 
we cannot consecrate, we cannot hallow this ground. The brave 
men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it far 
above our power to add or detract. The Avorld will little note, or 
long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they 
did here. It is for us, the living, rather to be dedicated here to 
the unfinished work they have thus far so nobly carried on. It is 
rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining be- 
fore us, that from these honored dead we take increased devotion 
to the cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion ; 
that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in 
vain, that the nation shall, under God, have a new birth of free- 
dom, and that the government of the people, by the people, and 
for the people, shall not perish from the earth." 

Marvellous man ! What pathos in his words, what inspiration 
in his appeals! He could rouse the nation at his call. "He 
stamped upon the earth, and two millions of armed men leaped 
forward ! He spoke to the sea, and the mightiest navy the world 
ever saw crowned every wave ! He breathed into the air, and 
money and munitions rained upon the people ! '' At his bidding 
State after State wheeled into line, and marched southward, sing- 
ing— 

" We are coming, father Abraham, one hundred thousand strong !" 

Marvellous man ! Among many great men he was 

" Greatest, yet with least pretense. 
Foremost hearted of his time, 
Kich in saving common sense, 
And as the greatest only are 
In his simplicity sublime." 

Marvellous man ! An enfranchised race will forever hail him 
as their liberator, while a United Kepublic will forever own him 
as its saviour. 



16 

He rests from his labors. Green be the sod that covers the- 
head, amaranthine the chaplets which a grateful people will wreath 
and place on the tomb ; highest in the niche of fame be the name 
inscribed, and embalmed, and enshrined forever in the holiest 
memories of the nation's heart — yea in its heart of hearts, — be 
the name of the renowned, matchless, and magnificent 

ABRAHAM LINCOLN ! 



N60 






•3 */^. - 'J^ 








'^0^ 

,-!«:>. 







\./ 







'bV^ 



.^^. 







??? u.'. o 




'. ^^o< » 










: ^^-n^. - 









S-. ■^... ./ .-y^^:- %. ..^ -:^CH'. "^„./ ''/^.'. %.o^ 




s^-^ 



^•>''^^*, 



<•„ i^ < 



%%'^ 



» • • / . V V ♦ ' • " 
















'. '-^^0^ / 

















v^^ 























4 .a.^ ^Vfc. 














